Kamome Shirahama is now launching with the anime of Witch Hat Atelier. However, her beginnings are more in western comics. This also explains her great success.
What has the manga artist done? Even before she started working on the manga for Witch Hat Atelier, the author illustrated many pictures for Marvel and DC comics. She was also involved in the Star Wars comics.
At Illustration Age, you can admire some of the works she co-illustrated. These include characters like Batgirl, as well as Star Wars: The Force Awakens or Dr. Strange. On her X account, you can see more works including one of Rey from Star Wars:
Even after that, she occasionally contributed to more recent comics. But her biggest career leap is a different one.
At some point, the artist decided to create her own manga. In 2016, she transitioned to Witch Hat Atelier and celebrated great success with the manga. Now the anime follows, which is also well received. And this great success can indeed be explained by her past.
Witch Hat Atelier aims to appeal to fans outside Japan
Where does the great success come from? In a recent interview on The UNESCO Courier, the manga artist reveals that she essentially draws a fantasy world in a western style. She wants to portray this world as comprehensively as possible, which is why she opted for roll cuts and classical art styles. She wants to convey the atmosphere of that era and worldview through her style:
At the same time, many artists choose their tools and visual language according to the worlds they want to depict. Some create works in the Japanese style using brushes, while others use digital tools or computer graphics for cyber or science fiction scenarios. In this sense, style and technique are part of how a creator expresses the world of the work. I see myself as an example of this broader approach.
Since she had already drawn western comics before Witch Hat Atelier, she always had the western audience in mind. Therefore, she was aware from the beginning of the potential scale of the manga, even though the success came as a surprise to her.
And many fans can confirm this on Reddit. They write that the manga actually seems very western to them, and some only started reading it because they found the cover so beautiful. The western drawing style has indeed attracted some fans, which helps explain the success.
The anime of Witch Hat Atelier has just begun airing. If you want to catch up on the series, you haven’t missed many episodes so far. To know when the episodes will air regularly, you can save the following article: Witch Hat Atelier: Episode 5 – Release Overview
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